Born on 16th October 1799, Margaret Felicité Anne Carew was seventeen when this portrait was published, but she had been articled to the singing instructor James Welsh when she was only twelve. After two years' tuition she was engaged in the chorus at Covent Garden and distinguished herself in the spring of 1816 by singing Miss Stephens' role of Lucy Mannering in the opera Guy Mannering, at four hours' notice, when Miss Stephens was ill. She played Sylvia in Cymon there the same year, was engaged by the Haymarket that summer and returned to Covent Garden for the winter season. A review in The Theatrical Inquisitor or The Monthly Mirror, July 1818, of her performance as Clara in Sheridan's opera The Duenna, described her voice as: 'a clear, powerful and sweet soprano, of considerable compass' and noted that her principle roles were established as Rosina Lodina, Clarissa, and Leonora.

This portrait appeared in the March 1817 edition of La Belle Assemblée, or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine, first published in 1806 by the successful London printer John Bell (1745- 1831), who owned several other magazines. La Belle Assemblée was primarily a women's magazine with fashion plates, celebrity profiles, sheet music, poetry, fiction, news items and some scientific articles. Its first fashion plates from February 1806 were not coloured, but from November 1806 it came out in two forms, uncoloured at 2s 6d or hand-coloured at 3s 6d, illustrating outfits worn by ladies of rank as well as the latest styles. It was printed monthly for people to compile into volumes, and rather confusingly its illustrations were dated a month ahead. This portrait of Miss Carew was dated 1st April 1817.